Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill says he is “extraordinarily confident” that the Senate election was very professional, competent and a direct yield to the results of how the people voted. (Source: WSFA 12 News)

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) -

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill says he is “extraordinarily confident” that the Senate election was very professional, competent and a direct yield to the results of how the people voted.

Late Wednesday, Moore filed a lawsuit to try and stop Alabama from certifying Jones as the winner. Moore’s attorney wrote a wide-ranging complaint suggesting “irregularities” during the election and asked for a fraud investigation and eventually a new election.

One of the claims of the lawsuit deals with voter turnout. The lawsuit says 20 precincts in Jefferson County had “implausible” turnout and that Moore performed much worse than most Republicans. Merrill says he hasn’t received any evidence of voter fraud from those areas.

“That has not been introduced to us yet. If it is introduced to us formally then we will investigate it,” Merrill said.

Merrill says they take allegations of voter fraud very seriously, but just because someone alleges an illegal activity took place, does not mean that it happened. Merrill says he believes it is important to investigate allegations of voter fraud and to see if those cases have validity, which is what his office has been doing.

“People are entitled to their own opinions, but they're not entitled to their own facts,” Merrill stated.

According to Merrill, there have been 115 reports, every single one has been investigated and more than 60 of those reports have already been completely cleared.

As it stands, Merrill says the election certification process will take place at 1 p.m. on Thursday, and Moore’s lawsuit won’t stop it.

“The only thing that could stop this certification from happening at 1 p.m. would be an injunction issued by a judge withstanding that would indicate to us that this process would need to be delayed or suspended,” Merrill said.

Merrill later added “We have to maintain the credibility and integrity of the process. People need to have confidence that the process occurred.”